12th Newsletter

Preface

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to present the Society' s 12th Newsletter.

Thanks to all of you, the ESNCH continues to be the world's largest society in the field of neurosonology and cerebral hemodynamics and keeps on promoting scientific research, education and training in these fields. It also provides an international forum for presentation of scientific advances and a great chance for young researchers to present their work and to gain experience in the prestigious laboratories of our senior members.

A perfect example of this mission has been the 13th meeting of the ESNCH which took place in Genova, Italy, from May 10th to 13th 2008 and was organized by chairman Massimo Del Sette. The conference was a great opportunity for sharing knowledge on new developments in neurovascular ultrasound, from acute stroke to parenchyma and perfusion imaging, from monitoring to particular fields such as non-vascular use of ultrasound. More than 330 participants from 35 different countries, 60 invited speakers and 128 excellent platform and poster presentations reflected the interest of the scientific community in the areas covered by our Society. Attendees came from Western, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as from North America and Asia. After the success in Budapest, a theoretical and hands-on test was organized in cooperation with the Neurosonology Research Group of the World Federation of Neurology: many applied to achieve the International Certification in Neurosonology. Genova and its old harbour area has been a gorgeous place for the Meeting and the good weather gave the delegates a unique opportunity to visit historical places, the famous harbour, pictoresque palaces and churches and one of the largest Acquariums in Europe.

However, in many countries, Neurosonology is still under-recognized and underused especially in Stroke Medicine. For this very reason, it was decided to bring the 14th meeting of the ESNCH to the Baltic Republics: in particular we received the official candidature of Riga, Latvia, by a very enthusiastic colleague, Prof. G. Baltgaile, who will be the Congress Chairman and along with her team she will organize this event from May 23th to 25th 2009; more information atwww.neurosonology2009.lv. We also launched a summer school program and the 1st International Neurosonology Training Course of the ESNCH took place last September in ltaly; thanks to this success we have already decided to hold such a course every two years in different European locations, the next "training camp" being Dubrovnik in Croatia. Furthermore, we encourage all of our members to actively support implementation of ultrasound in local stroke programs and to send to our webmaster, Prof. J. Klingelhöfer neurologie@skc.de, announcements of upcoming events and conference reports for publication on our website: www.esnch.org.

The scientific vitality and democratic value of our Society is well expressed by the turnover of its officers; this gives the opportunity for younger members to become active and bring new ideas both for research and cooperation. After many years of excellent service as members of the Executive Committee, Prof. L. Csiba and Prof. N. Bornstein stepped down from their positions and two new elected members will join the Executive Committee of the ESNCH during our next Meeting in Riga. The new EC will then elect the new President of our Society, who will receive the mandate from Prof. Niederkom, who has steered our Society both with energy and diplomacy.

In the near future, the details of all ESNCH activities will be provided via e-mail. Therefore, it is desirable to receive your e-mail address in order to help registered members to stay updated on the latest facts and events.